A Drifter Among Us

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind"

- Dr. Seuss

I've been struggling with my identity lately. It's not that I'm uncomfortable with who I am, I just don't know how to live it passionately. There are many things I hold to be true that I don't necessarily live out, while the things I doubt and hold disbelief in are what I'm constantly engaged and entangled with. I'm a walking web of contradictions. I believe, but I doubt. I'm inspired, but I'm unaroused.

There's a Korean student that has been coming to my community group for the past 6 months that is looking into Christianity. I've learned a lot from him about his culture and his beliefs. He said something the other night when asked what he hopes to get out of the bible when he reads it. In his broken English he said that he hopes that he is able to do 1% of what he believes, because what he believes and what he does are so different.

This is coming from a Buddhist, who reads the bible probably more than I do. When I looked down at the bible that we had given him, he had post it notes and writings all over the pages. I can assure you, my bible doesn't look like that...but it should. I read, but I don't draw conclusions.

Reading through Romans 7, I found that Paul had the same thing happening in his life.

"For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."

Is it that we're all conflicted? Are we all weaving webs that entangle us? I've become a person that needs comfort, acceptance, and power. To most people these are good things, and they are, but desiring something too much can be suffocating. And this is where I'm at: My life is full of idols, and I can barely breath. My mind believes one things. My body another.

"So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."